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Monday, 27 April 2015

PART III: 21st CENTURY CHALLENGES TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

“Consumption
Democracy”

Consumption values are at the core of contemporary American
culture. The mass media, businesses and
politicians equate such values with freedom and democracy. The social contract
as the Founding Fathers conceived of it is not about democracy, freedom and
equality, but about mass consumption of citizens as consumers, an idea that
America has exported to the rest of the world since the end of WWII. Government
and the courts are more interested protecting consumer rights than civil rights.
The legal system is also geared to serve and protect consumers rather than
citizens.

The ideology of “consumption democracy” became integrated
into the culture because government, corporations, and media equated it with
the late 18th century concept of the contractual relationship that
exists among businesses. By the late 19th century with the rise of
the urban middle class, consumer protection of the bourgeois citizen was one of
customer whose legal rights were as protected as those of businesses based on
his/her purchasing power in society. Citizen identity with the nation during
the age of romanticism in the early 19th century was replaced with
consumption values prevailing during the Age of Materialism in the late 19th
century. The idealism imbedded in American nationalism that can be seen by the
time of Emerson had been replaced with the age of advertising focused on
propagating “wants and needs” of the growing middle class during the era that
Mark Twain called Gilded Age. (Lizabeth Cohen, A
Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
).

“Consumption
democracy” is the Ralph Nader brand of bourgeois democracy as expressed in consumer
protection that media, businesses and government project as America’s unique
political culture. In theory at least, this unique type of democracy transcends
race, religion, and ethnicity because it is class-based in a country that never
had a privileged aristocracy like Europe and was founded by the commercial,
financial, and agrarian bourgeoisie of a British colony. With its deep roots in
late 19th century industrial America that produced scandals
involving various services and products from rotted meats to pharmaceuticals,
consumer advocacy became a legitimate way to defend democratic rights of the
middle class during the Progressive Era. Although Upton Sinclair’s The
Jungle was a leftist critique of American capitalism, it was the
bourgeois progressive movement that used it to justify the creation of a much
needed Food and Drug Administration.

As big business
gave birth to big government bureaucracies during the Progressive Era, consumer
protection was the new expression of democracy through which the middle class
could fight for its rights. Despite resistance on the part of many capitalists
opposed to regulatory mechanisms, corporate social responsibility became good
business and attorneys filing law suits made sure of it in an effort to protect
the middle class consumer. Naturally, consumption democracy did not extend to
worker’s rights despite trade union organizing efforts. For example, US Steel Corporation had no problem with
the concept of consumer rights, but it fought hard to keep union out of the
industry. (Daniel Yankelovich, Profit with Honor; John Goldring,
“Consumer Protection, the Nation-State, Law, Globalization, and Democracy.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 2, 1996; D. E. Saros, Labor, Industry, and Regulation
during the Progressive Era)

As far as apologists of the “consumption democracy”
are concerned, there is nothing wrong with the citizen-government relationship
transformed into consumer-business contractual relationship just as there is
nothing wrong of a business-to-business contractual relationship. After all, Adam
Smith argued that government has a regulatory function and determines rules for
binding agreements that involve private property and contracts. In order to
protect his/her interests, the citizen’s role is commoditized in the market
economy and reduced to a legal business role. Naturally, there are
conservatives, neoliberals, and Libertarians who oppose regulations because
they see them as impediments to capitalism.

Social democrats see the regulatory regime as the only
viable tool of democracy in a capitalist society. Pro-regulatory elements
believe that it is both good for business and society’s harmonious function to
have rule regulating human relations even though it may be on the business
contractual model. Operating on a very different concept of democracy, neoliberals
of our time see it as an anathema to capitalist expansion and constrictive to
capital accumulation that they equate with democracy. (Michael Lipsky, Rulemaking
as a Tool of Democracy” MEMOS.org/ 17 December 2014)

The notion of legal consumer protection from faulty or fraudulent products
and services is highly characteristic of service-oriented economies with the US
at the core. In most countries around the world, the idea that consumer protection
equals democracy would be as odd as the idea of commoditizing the citizen like
a bag of potatoes. However, globalization and the emergence of the thriving
“cybermarket” have resulted in “consumption democracy” gone global. Does this
mean that globalization and cyberspace is contributing to democratization of
the world or simply integrating it more closely into the capitalist system? A
way to rationalize the capitalist system while providing some protection to the
middle class, “consumption democracy” caught on especially after WWII because
it operated within the milieu of “market economy values”, while it restricted
freedoms owing to the Cold War climate and overriding national security
concerns that transcended civil rights.

In the age of globalization, the Russian consumer of Microsoft products and
services is entitled to the same courtesy as her US counterpart. The global
corporation treats both Russian and US consumers as patrons of the company not
as citizens. Whereas in the US consumer service is then turned into a social
good and an integral part of the American Dream, this is not the case in Russia
that has a market economy but people do not equate democracy with consumerism
as Americans do. While one could argue that is largely cultural because the
British consumer is much closer to her American counterpart in equating
democratic rights with consumption, both the British and Russia citizens hold a
much higher level of class consciousness than their American counterparts.
Although according to opinion polls more than half of the Americans believe
their government intervenes to strengthen the rich, they do not frame
inequality issues in terms of class in the same manner and to the level
Europeans and Russians do. Is the challenge of the American people to equate
democracy with social justice, or is it a reflection of their culture that the European
and Russian masses do not appreciate consumerist values and “consumption
democracy”?

Apologists of capitalism insist that American “consumerist values” and
market populism is a more democratic than political democracy that many Europeans
advocate. These same neoliberal apologists would not recognize the right of a
worker to unionize whether in the US or anywhere else in the world, but they
have no problem with consumer advocacy organizations. This form of democracy is
predicated on consumption levels, which in essence leaves out the working poor
of the world from partticipation. The more money the individual has, the more
consumption, thus the more democracy one enjoys. In other words, democratic
rights are not predicated on citizenship rights of equality for all, but on
income that varies based on class. Former Labor Secretary Reich is absolutely correct
observing that consumerism has overtaken democracy and poses a challenge to the
republic in this century. While for critics like Reich the challenge for a
democratic society is to readjust its values otherwise its lifespan will not be
long and thriving, as society is already in the phase of “corporatocracy” –
economic, political, social and cultural life controlled by corporations,
neoliberals insist that “consumption democracy” is the future for the world
under globalization. (Robert Reich, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business,
Democracy, and Everyday Life).

The American middle class aspiring to the American Dream is convinced that
consumerism equals democracy and shopping at the mall is something between
entertainment and a religious experience. However, they are not as convinced
that the system works for them nearly as well as it does for the privileged
socioeconomic elites whose interests government promotes. After all, one cannot
possibly be a consumer of everything described in the American Dream if one
fears the prospect of downward social mobility, let alone lapsing close to the
poverty line. If the political regime allows the very rich to shape all
institutions and determine policy that impacts the lives of people both as
citizens and consumers, then can such a system be labeled democracy or would a
different name – oligopoly under oligarchy - more accurately describe it?

Voter Apathy

On 20 April 2015, the Washington Post ran a front page
story that all voters are fed up with “big money” flowing into political
campaigns. Presumably, this will be a defining issue in 2016, as it has been
for one presidential election after the other in decades past. This may be the
case for 2016, but Mother Jones magazine also ran a headline 250 Years of Campaigns, Cash, and Corruption. Going back to my undergraduate years when the Watergate scandal erupted on
the political arena, big money in politics is all I can remember every four
years of presidential elections. Rich people giving money to secure
appointments as ambassadors, to secure tax breaks, to secure perks for their
industry. The result of massive amounts of money from very few people in
politics has left the majority alienated. Therefore, the level of “consumption
democracy” is acquired privilege bought and paid for by those who can afford it.

It ought not to surprise anyone that America has one of the lowest voter
turnouts in the world. Voter participation is below 40% for congressional
elections and below 60% of registered voters in presidential contests.
According to the Center for the Study of the
American Electorate, only 14.8% of eligible voters participated in 25 states.
In the 2014 mid-term election that was a disaster for the Democrats, the US had
the lowest voter turnout in 72 years, with 43 states fewer than half of the
eligible citizens participating. It is
interesting to note that some of the poorest states in the country, and some
still not recovered from the effects of the 2008 recession scored below the
national average in voter participation.

The result was a clean sweep by Republicans carrying
an agenda favoring the wealthy even more than what the Democrats would have
permitted. One could argue that voter apathy as a sign of cynicism about the
political system is unhealthy and a warning sign that the percentage of
non-participants will rise unless the system if fixed.However, the Republican Party, which has been
in the minority since FDR, has actually been winning elections largely because
of voter apathy, although by no means as the only variable. (“The
Worst Voter Turnout in 72 Years”, New York Times, 11 November 2014)
Can a functioning democracy continue with voter turnout of one-third
participation, and if so, can it be called a democracy when two-thirds of the
people do not participate even in a two-party system that represents the
capitalist class?

Senator Bernie Sanders among others has argued that
one can understand voter apathy when billionaire ultra-conservatives like the
Koch brothers and their business lobby “Freedom Partners” spend enormous
amounts to money to determine candidates and agendas. While most people would
argue that voter apathy undermines democracy, this is exactly the result that
conservatives and far right wingers want. Their goal is to marginalize as much
of the voters as possible so Democrat candidates would not be elected. Although
the US has Christian fundamentalists and an assortment of other right wingers
that detest democracy in as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson conceived of it,
it is true that ideological manipulation through the media has as its ultimate
goal to silence dissent and perpetuate the monolithic corporatist state with a
right wing ideological and political orientation. (Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian
Right and the War On America; Noam Chomsky,Necessary
Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies).

Although the US has always been a status quo country,
and moved to the right during the Cold War, it is hardly a totalitarian
country, or even Fascist in the sense of classical Fascism that made its
appearance in the interwar era. However, Sheldon Wolin is correct that the US
has very troubling signs of a nation in the grip of “inverted totalitarianism”
where government and corporations are in collaboration to maintain a political
economy and social structure that resembles a totalitarian society. As long as
there was upward social mobility from 1945 until 1975, “inverted
totalitarianism” was camouflaged because income distribution was not as
concentrated as it has become. The massive capital concentration, however, has
resulted in a more right wing course.In
a nation where class consciousness is far lower than any other among the
advanced capitalist countries, and where a sense of powerlessness prevails and
conformity constantly reinforced by media and the state, the result is apathy
rather than organizing and fighting to change the undemocratic system. (Sheldon
Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted
Totalitarianism)

Institutionalized Racism

If we need incontrovertible
evidence of a chronic threat to American democracy, then we need not look any
farther than institutionalized racism manifesting itself in the police
enforcement, judicial and penal systems. This is not to say that there is no
evidence of racism when we analyze socioeconomic indicators from unemployment
and income distribution to housing, health and education statistics. It would
be false to argue that there has been no progress since the 1960s. However, it
would equally wrong to argue that institutionalized racism is not a 21st
century challenge for American democracy. Regardless of the Bill of Rights,
amendments to the Constitution, the Civil Rights movement, and of course
political correctness intended to provide a thin veil of superficial politeness
beneath which rests an apartheid mindset, racism remains an institutional
problem.

The absence of political
will to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment from the end of the Civil War until
the early 1960s meant that it was not until the Johnson administration that the
courts finally began to impose the law, and then only selectively and
on-case-by-case depending on the court. The numerous court cases and millions of
dollars paid to victims of civil rights violations have yet to stop either the
police or any other entity public or private from overlooking the law with
regard to race. Despite a black US president and a Justice Department with
minority leadership from 2008 until 2016, the militarist-racist culture in
police departments around America is clearly manifested in its treatment of
minorities, especially black males. Targeting minorities by police and the
methods often used is a reflection on the entire democratic system and the
collapse of the Constitutional protections afforded to citizens. Recorded
visual and audio evidence of police methods notwithstanding, and police and
court records clearly showing deliberate targeting of minorities, government at
all levels from local and state to federal have done nothing to change the
culture of racism, thus sending the message that democracy must be subordinated
to police-state methods that violate the law of the land.

Beyond the numerous incidents involving police officers and black males,
despite the reality of US prisons populated inordinately by minorities, there
is an inexorable link between “consumption democracy” and racism that impacts
mostly poor black people. It is true that class transcends race otherwise we
would not have black millionaires and blacks in management. However, Obama
sitting in the White House and Oprah owing several mansions has absolutely
nothing to do with institutionalized racism that is very much alive in society
where the mass media portrays it as “isolated incidents” rather than at the
core of the dominant culture.(Ahmed Shwaki, Black
Liberation and Socialism)

In the early 21st
century, American democracy will be challenged by the persistence of the
culture of discrimination against minorities that has been a part of the
history from Independence until the present. Marginalizing minorities reflects
the glaring contradiction between the ideological commitment to the
constitution that promises equality for all, and the reality of subtle and
blatant discrimination against blacks, non-white immigrants, and in the last
two decades Muslims. If Muslim, black and Hispanic minorities have to engage in
self-censorship to show that they have accepted the institutional structure and
hegemonic culture that is in itself a constraint on their freedom and their
right of dissent in a democratic society. If there is a need for Affirmative Action
because the majority is not to be trusted to make decisions based on a
combination of merit criteria and rectifying social injustices, that too is a
reflection that democracy is not functioning the same for all as the Constitution
stipulates.(Manisha Sinha and Penny von
Eschen, Contested Democracy: Freedom, Race, and
Power in American History)

Minorities as well as a segment of the majority
population realize that America has a serious problem with racism and one that
is not going away any time soon. On 13 December 2014, there were large popular
protest rallies across major US cities, including New York, San Francisco,
Washington D.C. and Boston. These demonstrations came after numerous others had
taken place throughout November and early December when grand juries – in
essence the justice system – failed to indict white police officers killing
unarmed black males. On 12 April 2015, Freddie Gray died in police custody
after running from the police after a chase for allegedly carrying a knife. The
city of Baltimore, like so many other cities across America, has seen popular
protests by people demanding respect for civil rights of minorities. In a
nation hardly known for its tradition of protests and defiance of authority, such
mass protests across the country reveal a systemic problem that government,
media and the elites deliberately ignore and try to settle with payments to the
families of victims after law suits filed in court. (“Protesters vow to 'shut down' Baltimore over
Freddie Gray killing,”Christian Science Monitor, 25 April
2015)

The anti-racist protests in American cities come right
out American history when the entire justice system was stacked against
minorities and remains so to this day as evidence by court cases and prison
statistics of minorities. No matter the superficiality of “Political
Correctness” intended as protocol and legal cover for the hypocritical
political and legal structure desperate to project a non-racist image, the
empirical evidence suggests vestiges of an apartheid society. Because the
American institutional structure is rooted in racism and the police state is in
full force during the era of counter-terrorism it really does not mean much
that there is a black president and attorney general in the Department of Justice,
or a black anchor person reporting the news. The challenge to American
democracy in the 21st century is to eradicate institutional racism,
not to allow a small percentage of minorities be integrated into the
institutional mainstream as leaders.

The most significant
protest movements in American history that have resulted in reforms include tax
revolts (Boston Tea Party rebellion 1773) that led to the War of Independence,
the abolitionist movement leading to the Civil War, the Women’s suffrage that
led to voting rights, and the Civil Rights movement that ended legalized
segregation. The degree to which popular protest movements have actually
resulted in reforms of greater democratization is debatable, considering that
women remain the discriminated gender, and racism has very deep institutional
roots as evidenced by all indicators from the percentages of blacks living
below poverty to the percentage convicted and imprisoned in comparison with the
general population. It is simply impossible to overcome the challenge of racism
to American democracy in isolation and not part of an integrated effort of
democratizing all of society as part of a commitment to social justice. Both
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King recognized toward the end of their lives that
institutionalized racism is part of a larger issue regarding social justice. (Nick
Bromell, The Time is Always Now: Black Thought and
the Transformation of US Democracy; Joseph Barndt, Understanding and Dismantling
Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America.)

Gun violence and NRA-Democracy

Does gun violence have anything to do with democracy,
or is it strictly a Second Amendment issue as the gun-manufacturing supported NRA
insists? Clearly, there is a direct correlation between gun violence and
poverty and unemployment in urban America, as many politicians, academics and
journalists acknowledge. While the predominantly white middle class in suburban
areas are hardly affected, it is not so for the mixed race-ethnically diverse inner
city poor areas where political participation is extremely low and residents are
victimized by gun violence.

Gun violence is unique in the history of the US, perhaps
because of the confrontational relationship with Native Americans as well as
the glorification of lawlessness as part of the Westward expansion movement. Considering
that there is greater gun ownership per capita in Switzerland but far less
violence, we are forced to consider how gun violence fits into American culture.
Not just the history involving decimating the Native American population and
preserving the apartheid regime even after the Civil War, but the consumer
culture itself are inexorably part of the gun violence society that presents a
major challenge to democracy.

At the core argument of the Second Amendment (The right of the
people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.) is the right
of the individual and the sense of freedom gun ownership provides. Is the
proliferation of firearms constructive to a democracy or detrimental? Is
society as a whole pays for the devastating results of gun violence almost as
much as the entire Medicaid program does society have the right to a
gun-violence free environment? Clearly, this is an ideological issue with
arch-conservatives opting for gun ownership they equate with rugged
individualism and the “American way of life”. However, if it were not for the
powerful NRA lobby, this would not be an issue. (Firmin DeBrabander, Do Guns Make Us Free?: Democracy and the
Armed Society; Joan Burbick, Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy)

It is amazing that the cost of gun violence to America is $229 billion,
according to a recent estimate by Mother Jones. However, even it gun
violence cost a tiny fraction of what is estimated, does this make it
acceptable? Should a democratic society tolerate the rightwing ideologues
backed by the gun lobby imposing a massive burden on the majority of the
population? That Mother Jones has fallen into the assumptions of the mainstream media
and framed the issue of gun violence in sheer terms of the bottom line is
indicative of how the dominant culture prevails in defining not just the issues
of importance, but how they are presented to the public. “at least 750,000
Americans injured by gunshots over the last decade, and she was lucky not to be
one of the more than 320,000 killed. Each year more than 11,000 people are
murdered with a firearm, and more than 20,000 others commit suicide using one.”
Mother Jones April 2015

Beyond the right wing NRA politics, gun violence is at
its core a class, race and ethnicity issue. The victims of gun violence are
minorities and poor whites, while the affluent are rarely touched except as
hunters. The leading cause of death among black teenagers is gun violence.
While the media and government become alarmed when gun violence impacts middle
class white areas, they rarely mention the impact of gun violence in minority
neighborhoods. That a democratic country places the individual’s right to gun
ownership above people’s right to live free of fear from gun violence reveals a
great deal of an ideological commitment to gun manufacturers and values rooted
in violence. (John D. Marquez, Genocidal Democracy:
Neoliberalism, Mass Incarceration, and the Politics of Urban Gun Violence.)

Political Polarization

From 1980 to the present, there is a noticeable trend toward bitter
partisanship and disintegration of America’s 'consensus politics' that has
exacerbated sociopolitical polarization. Given the declining living standards
with the erosion of the middle class at a time that we have seen vast wealth
concentration, the beneficiaries are clearly the financial elites that want the
state to maintain the appearance of pluralism but in fact have authoritarian
traits. The dynamics of human society are similar today as in the 17th century
when Hobbes wrote The Leviathan. Therefore
if a modern American Leviathan emerges it will be an expression of contemporary
society confronting a social and economic structure that is unraveling. (Juan
Enriquez, The Untied States of
America: Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future;John Sides and D. J. Hopkins, Political
Polarization in American Politics)

The media that has the power to mold public opinion and convince people
that Leviathan means “salvation” from self-destructive proclivities of an
otherwise irrational public. If people are convinced that safety and security
rests in the hands of the Leviathan, will society move away from the Jeffersonian
model that some equate with ideal democracy toward one that projects an image of
narrowly-defined democracy equated with freedom to enjoy safety and security, consume
and vote for politicians who represent the same elites? Is this a democratic model
or one behind which rests an authoritarian/police/military state? How much
freedom would Americans enjoy under an authoritarian government model?

In January 2011, the US-government funded NGO watchdog group Freedom House, released a report listing
25 of 194 countries with declining levels of freedom, a list that includes
France and Hungary, among the usual Middle East, African, and Latin American
suspects. Well known for clandestine activities in a number of countries the US
opposes, Freedom House does not
include the US on its list of nations with declining freedoms, but many other
organizations and public opinion polls have the US on their lists.

The World Press
Freedom Index ranks the US 49th out of 180, below Chile, Niger
and South Africa! The UK’s Legatum
Institute lists the US lists the US 21st in the world, largely
because of its lack of tolerance of dissident voices characteristic of an
authoritarian country rather than a democracy. In 2014, the Legatum Prosperity Index showed that while the US was 10th
most prosperous country in the world, 86% of its citizens felt that their
personal freedom has been in decline because of inability to choose the way to
live.

Although party affiliation as related to social class is not nearly as
great a factor in the US as it is in Europe, the US has been drifting toward
political-ideological polarization that reflects socioeconomic polarization in
the last 30 years. Sociopolitical polarization is more evident today than it
was when the Reagan-Bush team came to Washington and contributed to that
phenomenon. But is it the fault of the politicians seeking elected office at
almost any price, the well-paid “talking heads” that propagate for one side or
the other, or is it the source of polarization a political economy that has
resulted in the weaker middle classAccording to a Pew Research Center
study conducted in June 2014, 36% of Republicans view Democrats as a threat to
America’s wellbeing and 27% of Democrats feel likewise for the Republicans.
This also reflects the reality that those identifying with the Republican Party
are much more rightwing in 2014 than they were in 1994, while the majority of
Democrats have also shifted left of the liberal “middle” that the party wants
voters to embrace.

This polarization in the voter base, added to voter apathy reveals that the
vast majority of the American people no longer believe in the kind of political
consensus that developed under Truman in the late 1940s in both domestic and
foreign policy. The irony here is that while the Republican Party has most
certainly moved to the far right by embracing Tea Party agenda elements, the
Democrat Party has also moved to the right away from principles and policies
that in the 1960s afforded a sense of hope for the workers, the middle class,
workers and minorities. As much in foreign policy as in fiscal and trade
policy, there is hardly much difference between the two. Where there are
differences on environmental and culturally liberal issues such as gay
marriage, right to life, those have only a marginal impact on society, no
matter how polarizing the media tries to portray them.

All presidential campaigns promise the American Dream to all citizens, but
all of them deliver even greater privileges to those making the hefty campaign
contributions. The presidential race for 2016 is no different, considering that
the campaign of the Republican favorite and presumptive nominee Jeb Bush is
already engaged in illegal activities. In fact, the super PAC raising money for
Jeb Bush has done so in record time and exceeded all previous records. According
to Reuters, the Bush campaign is trying to convert the super PAC backing him
into a campaign committee so that they can circumvent the limits on unlimited
donations. “A relatively
small number of millionaires and billionaires could pay for Bush’s race for the
2016 Republican presidential nomination. The only problem is that the Bush
scheme, as reported, would be illegal.” Reuters,
23 April 2015

The Hillary Clinton campaign is equally corrupt and
equally beholden to a handful of very rich. Her family's “charities” have been
forced to re-file tax returns for the last five years because they withheld
vital information regarding contributions to the Clinton Foundation, an
organization that has been criticized for its endemic corruption practices. While
Hilary Clinton was in the State Department, the Clinton Foundation brought
million of dollars from foreign governments as well as corporations paying to
buy influence. Is this sloppy accounting or systemic corruption at the heart of
the American political system? If this is the Democrat candidate presenting
herself as the champion of the middle class and the enemy of the rich, it is
understandable why voters become cynical and apathetic about politics. Much of
this comes from Republican critics (Peter SchwitzerClinton Cash: The Untold Story of
How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary
Rich)

The amazing thing is that the wealthy do not have to make any contributions
to political campaigns because the system is already set up to serve their
interests and no politician will survive if she/he tries to challenge the power
and influence of big capital in society. Senator Bernie Sanders has been the
remarkable exception, but always works within the system to survive. The rich
give money to ensure influence for even more privileges of their specific
interests, whether in the pharmaceutical industry, banking etc. This means that
the average citizens are left out completely.

People have no illusions that the US is a country
with elected officials that hardly represent the interests of the workers and middle
class.Focused
on the elites for whose benefit laws and policies are designed, the entire
institutional structure exists to line up the masses into conformity.
It is amazing that even in the
latest budget deal that Obama sent to Congress for approval in December 2014,
school lunch subsidies were slashed, while more tax breaks for Wall Street were
included. No
matter how much right wing radio and TV rhetoric is thrown at the American
public, how is it possible that the vast majority do not appreciate that
Congress consistently fails to serve the public interest because the financing
of its campaigns and its ideological commitment is to the top ten percent of
the country’s richest people?

The end result is that political polarization will become much worse during
the next deep recession when there is further erosion of the middle class and
further downward social mobility. People will become more cynical as both
political parties try to convince the American people that the threats to
American democracy are beyond the sovereign borders and that the solution is
even more defense, intelligence, security and police spending, allegedly to
contain foreign enemies when in fact democracy itself is the enemy of the
existing political and socioeconomic elites.

Conclusions

An ancient Athenian invention, democracy evolved from the oligarchic system
that existed from Solon the “Law Giver” who set on a course to harmonize
society until Pericles who represented merchants and trade interests. A more
representative system of government than any other in the ancient world,
democracy was never inclusive, as it left all everyone who was not an adult
male citizen in a city-state where the slaves and metics (non-Athenians) were the major engine of the economy.
Similarly, in the modern times its challenge is the lack of inclusiveness and
failure to deliver on social justice that people see as an integral part of
this system. American democracy as the two political parties define it, as the
mass media projects it, as all mainstream institutions want it to be is safe
and sound for now because it helps to maintain a privileged elite with a fairly
substantial middle class social layers living the “American Dream”. The rest of
the population either aspires to the dream that never materializes, or they
have given up and live on the fringes.

As the political economy continues to erode the middle layers that historically
constitute the popular base of American “democracy”, and as the gap widens
between the popular base and the power base of the system – concentrated wealth
and political power – the system will begin to weaken and become increasingly
authoritarian. If the challenge of American democracy in the 21st
century is to survive and become stronger, it will not accomplish that goal if
the system is in essence a form of oligarchy of the rich that both political
parties represent as their role is achieve popular consensus to keep the
oligarchy going under the guise of the label “democracy”.

In an article entitled “America’s
Social Democratic Future”, Lane Kenworthy writing in Foreign Affairs (February
2014) agrees that the US has had many obstacles in its democratic progress. He
concludes that American democracy is better off today than in was when Wilson
took office in 1913, and it will be better off in the 21st century because
its regime emulates the “Nordic” model. Those who have studied the “Nordic”
models know the US has very little in common with them and even less with where
it is headed based on its contemporary history and current trends.

The idea that the US is anything like Finland, Sweden, Norway, or any
“Nordic” country is a combination of a mental construct and wishful thinking to
placate the beleaguered masses crying out for a more just society. Appealing to
the patriotic and nationalist mass sentiments, politicians and the corporate
media will argue that “sacrifices” by the middle class and workers, not by the
capitalists, are essential for America to remain “competitive” and enjoy the
fruits of its labors in the future. The idea that the American financial elites
will voluntarily compromise their privileges is as absurd as it was for the
French nobility to surrender their privileges before the French Revolution of
1789. The only goal of the wealthiest Americans is amassing even more power so
they remain hegemonic within society and globally. It is greed and power that
motivates them, not rational ideas, not what is just and unjust, right or
wrong.

The dogmatic ideological turn
to the right after the election of Reagan in 1980, and the US-led global effort
to undo all vestiges of Keynesianism and the social safety net while
transferring capital to corporations and banks through the fiscal system and
subsidies, created a political atmosphere hostile to any notion of democratic
collectivism. Even Walter Lippmann who was the arch defender of liberal
democracy agreed on the need of some measure of collectivism in a well function
democratic society. He conceded that the state has the obligation for society’s
economic life as a whole, even as it preserves liberty for individual
transactions.

The business and political establishment expects the masses to enjoy the
vicarious thrills of capitalist success and institutional privileges that the
elites enjoy in society and be content with such an ethereal experience because
they could be living in sub-Sahara Africa or Central America where living
standards are the lowest in the world. After all, is it not enough that one
enjoys personal identity with the super power of the world? Because of the
added elements of nationalism and patriotism, the middle class and workers
forgo their own realities and accept identity with the “larger” entity as
success. In other words, if the US economy and military are strong and healthy,
that ought to be enough for each individual, regardless if they have a
well-paying job and can make the rent, or if their children have a prospect of
upward social mobility.

Backed by the media, the corporate interests and political class will use
everything from “terrorism” to foreign policy crises to forge some popular
support for taking the country down the road to even more militaristic and police
state methods than we have know in the last fifteen years. Not to belabor
teleological mode of thinking, but the next decades will entail a deterioration
of both democracy and social justice, while socioeconomic and political
polarization are inevitable. Ideologically and politically the elites and media
will steer the public more to the right, creating even more political apathy
and cynicism, even greater polarization that will justify a course toward more
authoritarian methods.

One reason that American society will evolve in this manner is that the
contradictions between “Empire as a Way of Life”, to borrow
from William Appleman Williams great work, is in direct contradiction with
democratic development.It is entirely
possible that a very deep and serious societal crisis even worse than the Great
Depression of the 1930s could bring about a pause to these conditions at some
point in this century. Such a crisis could also result in some form of a
totalitarian state still calling itself democracy.

The challenges to American democracy in this century are not so different
than they were during the Gilded Age, but the US survived and went on to become
a superpower while creating a broader middle class. Having achieved the zenith
of its power during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations when there were
no economic rivals of any consequence, the US missed its opportunity to create
a sound economic base that would keep it strong for another century. Instead,
its policies of “Military Keynesianism” and welfare capitalism under a
neoliberal regime weakened not only the economic base but also the political
popular base on which American democracy stood. The very foundations of
American society are now shaky, though not beyond repair. If current trends persist
as I have described in this essay, those foundation will become even more so as
the century unfolds.

How can people bring about change if they people are slaves to aspirations
of supporting a system that inherently marginalizes them? Can there be greater
democratization of society in the absence of a cultural revolution, and is it likely
in the absence of a social revolution that will bring about political, economic
and social change. Emerging from the Enlightenment rationalist tradition of the
18th century, American democracy aimed at the ideals of the French
and English political philosophers but constantly grounded in the realities of
a young nation endeavoring to emulate the success of the mother country. Applying
abstract reason to solve societal problems was mainstream Enlightenment
thinking among idealists who came out of a class society in which the nobility
and the upper clergy held back the progress of society. In our time, the social
progress of society is held back by a handful of very wealthy people who enjoy
a hold on the state and institutions, including the media as a major tool of
social control.

More so today than in the late 18th century, American
democracy’s challenge is to serves the public interest not the interests of the
1% richest Americans to the detriment of the middle class and workers. It is
interesting that the media, politicians, and even academics use the term
“special interests” so that they avoid any class-based language and so that in
the so-called “special interests” they can include trade unions and
organizations such as the AARP, women’s and others. Defining corporate and
finance capital as “special interests”, while defining the “public interest” as
the sum total of citizens and the collective goods of the working class and
middle class would be a good first step toward meeting some of democracy’s
challenges in the 21st century. Engaging in deliberate
illusion-making by trying to remain politically, ideologically and culturally
acceptable to apologists of the existing system and refusing to recognize the
class struggle at the core American democracy’s simply perpetuates more myths
rather than trying to expose them. (John B. Judis, The Paradox of American
Democracy: Elites, Special Interests, and the Betrayal of Public Trust.)

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."